


Fidelis

by Wagnetic



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Book/Movie Fusion, Families of Choice, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wagnetic/pseuds/Wagnetic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cottia brings Marcus flowers and Esca has a brilliant idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fidelis

With the Eagle returned and Esca granted citizenship, the world seems full of possibilities to Marcus. True, their trials in Caledonia have taken a toll on his leg (which is now healing for the third time, and what he hopes will be the last) but even this cannot do much to darken Marcus’s mood. Esca loves him. He’s told him so in both their languages, shown him with his eyes and his hands and his mouth. Remembering the last still makes Marcus flush, though he blames it on the warm summer air.

The same air has been making Cub and Esca restless, which is why they are off hunting in the woods somewhere. While Marcus would prefer to be with them, he is far from unoccupied here. He has always liked the idea of farming, and though Esca has little interest in crops, his clan always bred fine horses and Esca plans to carry on the tradition. Now Marcus sits in his uncle’s garden, drawing up plans for the home that he and Esca will share: a small house, not quite British or Roman in design, a plot of fertile soil for crops, and a stable of course, but mostly open space, and all the freedom that entails. The land is theirs already, Marcus’s reward for returning the Eagle, and they have some money for supplies. If need be, Marcus could borrow what funds they don’t have from his uncle, but he would prefer not to. The man has done so much for them already.

Marcus’s thoughts are disrupted by a small sound behind him, barely noticeable even to his trained ears.

“Cottia, hello,” he says, smiling. “Esca is still training you to track, I gather. If your skirt hadn’t caught just then you might have startled me.”

Cottia snorts indignantly, still resembling some feral creature more than a Roman maiden. “How quietly can you move in a stola? I’m sure I’d hear you from a mile off.” Before Marcus can protest that he is a Roman man and thus has never worn a stola, she steps in front of him and thrusts something fragrant and colorful between his face and his tablet.

The wildflowers are a wonderfully garish clash of colors and shapes: large, rounded pink blossoms, pointed stalks of lavender, shocks of vivid blue among lacy little bells of white, new poppies just unfurling from their buds.

“You have strange prey today, vixen. Flowers? If Esca’s giving you lessons despite your guardians’ wishes, I hope he’s teaching you to hunt more useful things than these.”

“I give you a gift and your first thought is to insult it. It’s a wonder you have any friends. I’ll take them back then, if you don’t like them.”

Once, this kind of banter was foreign and puzzling to Marcus, since it is nothing like the manner in which he was taught to speak to women, but it’s become easy with time and the knowledge that Cottia is neither as delicate as her aunt Valeria would wish, nor as ill-tempered as her lack of social graces sometimes makes her appears. She is simply Cottia, and this is the way she prefers to speak and be spoken to.

The words that pass between them no longer alarm Marcus, but the flowers do. Cottia has never given him gifts before, and the way she does so now, familiar, jovial, and sly, makes him wonder exactly what he is to Cottia. It is strange for a young woman to have a grown man for a friend, and Cottia is of an age to be married. She’s never shown interest in any of the suitable men who visit her family from time to time, and she’s often confided in Marcus that she would sooner flee Calleva altogether than be given away to a stranger. But when Uncle Aquila has hinted, in Cottia’s presence no less, that she and Marcus would make a fine couple, Cottia has never shown any sign of disagreement. Is it possible that her objection is not to courtship itself, but merely to being courted by a stranger? Or perhaps being courted at all? It would be like her to take on the man’s part, defiant little thing that she is.

“Well?”

Marcus realizes that he has yet to reply. “I apologize… I was still absorbed in my drawing. The flowers are lovely. Thank you.”

“That’s better. Now show me what you’re drawing.”

“Take a look. I’ll go find a vase for these.”

When Marcus comes back, he finds Cottia frowning at his tablet. “You’ve forgotten something,” she says, and Marcus comes to peer over her shoulder.

“Field, house, stable, pens for the horses, open pastures. It all looks fine to me.”

“Look closer. The plan for the house is wrong.”

“I know it’s not a traditional British house or a Roman villa, but I thought you’d be the last to object—”

“You’re missing a room,” Cottia interrupts. “You need another room for _Esca_.”

Her face looks serious, angry even, and Marcus realizes that yes, of course they’ll need another room, for appearances’ sake. But something about the way Cottia stresses Esca’s name with such frustration… He doesn’t know how to read that. Has she guessed? Is she angry because she knows about his relationship with Esca and it disgusts her? Rebellious though she is, she has been raised among Romans and Roman mores, and perhaps some of them have sunk in further than others. Or, Marcus thinks, maybe she is jealous. If he’s correct about the meaning of the flowers, she very well might be. There is no way of knowing if he doesn’t ask her outright, and he’s not willing to do that. There’s too much at stake, too much that could go wrong. Better to leave it for now.

“Oh, yes,” he says. “I hadn’t finished the house, but I was impatient to start planning out the rest. There will be more additions to come.” It’s not the smoothest of lies and he’s not sure if Cottia believes him anyway, but she lets the matter go, which is a mercy.

Marcus still stays awake late into the night, thinking it over and wondering what he should do.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - -

 

Esca returns with Cub soon after, and Marcus greets them both warmly. Later he plans to give Esca a more thorough welcome, but that will have to wait until the rest of the household is asleep. For now, they sit together in Marcus’s room, hands intertwined, and Marcus is still amazed by how easy it is, this thing between them. He’s hesitant to break the familiar, peaceful silence, but just now he has need of Esca’s council as well as his company.

“I had a visit from Cottia the other day,” Marcus begins. “You’ve taught her well. She nearly managed to ambush me in the garden.”

Esca gives him a triumphant smile. “I have no doubt.”

Worried as he is, the expression warms Marcus. He can easily remember a time when he wondered if Esca had forgotten how to shape his lips into anything but scowl or sneer. This Esca, _his_ Esca, has the same heart as the Esca from before: full of honor, bravery, strength, and loyalty, but he bears himself so differently now. He smiles and whistles and his limbs are loose and light. He is even more beautiful than the Esca Marcus first loved, whose proud jaw clenched in anger and defiance even when his eyes were lowered.

“Well, was there something else you wanted to say, or did you just want to stare at me?”

This is a difference as well, the way his Esca teases. He catches Marcus out when he displays immoderate desire or fondness, and he taunts him. At first Marcus was hurt, wondered what he had done to make Esca wish to shame him this way, but now he knows that the teasing is simply Esca at play, no more of a threat than Cub’s occasional desire to roughhouse. He hasn’t become fully accustomed to this form of affection and he’s not sure whether he ever will, but the unpleasant twinges of embarrassment somehow draw out the sweetness of his life with Esca. Sometimes, Marcus even plays along.

“I’m in a greedy mood today. I want to watch you and speak with you, and I want to take my time doing so. You’ve left me alone here long enough that I deserve it as compensation.” This earns him another smile. “But yes, there was something…” His tone must reveal his fretting because Esca’s smile fades.

“Tell me, then.”

Marcus does tell him and Esca listens quietly. As Marcus speaks, Esca’s eyes begin to narrow, but he doesn’t look angry or worried. He looks thoughtful. He’s taking in the information and turning it over in his mind until he’s seen it from every angle. Marcus waits for his response, but when it comes, it throws him completely.

 "You should marry her,” Esca says. How can he even think of it? Perhaps this is a new kind of teasing.

Marcus aims for a steady tone, but when he says, “I don’t understand” it comes out with a ragged edge, as if he had said, “I thought you loved me.”

Esca clasps his neck, forcing Marcus to face him. “You promised her a place with us, and this is the only way for you to keep that promise.”

“I’ll break my word if I have no other choice. I could never share a bed with her when you’re the only one I want. It wouldn’t be fair to her. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us.”

Esca shakes him a little with his hand still tight against Marcus’s nape. “Don’t you care for her?” he snaps, and Marcus doesn’t know what he’s being berated for. He thinks of the armilla he’d left in Cottia’s care. Pia Fidelis. Does faithfulness matter so little to Esca? He opens his mouth to argue his point, but Esca isn’t done yet. “How do you think she would feel, having waited all this while for you to return? Do you think she would like to be abandoned here with no one who understands her? No one who thinks of her happiness?”

“Esca!”

“You know what it’s like to be alone and surrounded by people who don’t understand your value. Would you wish that on your friend?”

“Of course not! I never wanted that. But do you think any of us would really be content living that way?”

Esca’s eyes soften and he settles back against Marcus, breathes a gust of air against his shoulder, a sigh. “You will marry sometime, and father a child to carry your name when you’re gone. No, don’t argue—I know you. I would rather you had Cottia for your wife than any other woman. She’s always been pleasant company. She won’t insist on a proper Roman villa and she won’t ask that you send me away. She won’t even object to your wolf lurking about in the kitchen and begging for scraps. And I know she’s very dear to you. To both of us.”

While Marcus is no scholar, he understands Esca well enough to hear the words that have gone unspoken. Cottia is, in many ways, the closest thing Esca has to kin. They are of different tribes, but they’re both Britains who have unwillingly been bound to Rome. They have the same vibrant spirit in them too, a kind of wildness that Marcus will never understand no matter how much he admires it. It would be good for them to stay together, the three of them, if only their current roles could remain unchanged.

“Talk it over with her when you see her next,” Esca prompts. “Let her decide what she thinks of the matter.”

“Telling her exactly where we stand would be a great risk,” Marcus says, but Esca only chuckles, sending a pleasant hum of vibration into Marcus’s arm.

“You truly think she doesn’t know? I think she had it figured out before you did.”

Marcus shoves at him and kisses him until neither of them have breath to spare for laughter.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - -

 

Although he’s thought of several more tactful ways to pose the question, it still comes out with a complete lack of grace. Marcus looks from Esca to Cottia and back again until Cottia snaps, “What is the matter with you, Marcus?” and Marcus says, “I was wondering if— That is, knowing about… how it is with me and Esca— Would you still like to come with us? As my wife?” Cottia stares at him, looks back to Esca and _laughs_. That wasn’t a reaction Marcus had expected at all.

"You didn’t tell him!” she cries. “Esca, that’s cruel!”

“Didn’t tell me what?”

Esca raises his hands to fend of Cottia the same way he would block a blow. To Marcus, he says, “I talked to her already. I really did mean to let you know, but you tend to distract me when we’re alone.”

“Esca!” Marcus hisses. Teasing him when it’s just the two of them together is one thing, but they’re in public.

“It’s alright,” Cottia says breezily. “Just leave me out of it.”

“You’ve decided against it, then.” Something in Marcus sinks, and that’s odd because he didn’t think that he’d particularly wanted her to say yes until now. He still has Esca, and that’s wonderful—more than he could have ever hoped for— but he’s begun to imagine Cottia’s presence as well as Esca’s when he thinks of their farm. It won’t be the same without her, and of course he wants her to have whatever kind of life would make her happiest, but at some point he’d begun to hope that life would be with them.

“I never said I didn’t want to marry you,” Cottia says slowly, as if he were the one who had scarcely grown past childhood. “I only meant that I have no interest in coming between you and Esca.”

“Oh.”

“I intend to marry you, unless the two of you have changed your minds.”

“Oh.”

“Do say something other than that, Marcus! It’s no way to talk to the woman who will be your wife.” She shares a glance with Esca, and her amusement brightens to a lazy grin. Marcus allows a tentative smile of his own.

“I’m sorry, Cottia, sweet. I am glad, truly, but are you sure about this? You won’t be unhappy?”

She purses her lips and fixes him with an expression she must have learned from Sasstica. “Why should I be unhappy to share my life with my dearest friends?”

More than anything, Marcus learns, Cottia wants to live as she chooses, with whom she chooses, and where she chooses. Yes, she tells him, there is a chance that at some point in the future she will wish for a kind of love that Marcus cannot give her, but she still intends to hunt with Esca, to tend the crops with Marcus, and to spend her evenings nestled with Cub by a warm hearth. No passionate touches or words of devotion could hope to match a life among equals, and no man who would seek to dissuade her from her chosen path could ever win her heart.

"As for children,” Cottia says, “We will have at least one, but when I am ready, and no sooner. I plan to have my fill of life as a free woman before I resign myself to spending the rest of my days looking after babies.” Still, her smile widens as she says it, and Esca grumbles, “If the child is anything like either of you, it’ll take all three of us just to keep it from dashing off on some mad adventure as soon as it can walk.” Of course the child will be as much Esca’s as Marcus’s or Cottia’s, and secretly Marcus thinks that Esca will make a far better father than Marcus ever could. He remembers the way the Seal boy had clung to Esca, and the way Esca had smiled and ruffled his hair. He thinks of the horror on Esca’s face as the boy fell limp in the water. Marcus will never let their child share that boy’s fate. Esca shushes him and tells him that there will be time enough to fret over their child once it’s come into the world.

The three of them spend long days working to build their new home, far enough from the rest of the world that no one sees if Marcus stops to kiss Esca, and no one scolds Cottia for hiking up her skirt to run across the field with Cub at her heels. They build two bedrooms in their house, a larger one with a bed wide enough for two, and a smaller one, nominally for Esca. They spend most of their time outside anyway, coming in to eat and take shelter from foul weather, and if Cottia sleeps in Esca’s place and Esca in her’s, well, that’s their own affair.

Years from now, there will be horses in the fields, a little girl will sit astride a puzzled Cub’s back, and Cottia will laugh relentlessly at Esca’s complete inability to bake bread. Around the same time, Marcus will take over the majority of the housework, especially in the colder months when his leg is at its worst, and though he will miss farming, he will also prove to be far better at overseeing the household than Cottia ever was. At some point, the three of them will discuss exactly how they should explain to their daughter that although of course Esca is her father, she must never refer to him as such in front of others because the world outside their home is a strange place where children are only allowed two parents. But there will be time for all that later. For now, they are together and wildflowers are sprinkled all around the land that will be their home. Perhaps they tell falsehoods to the rest of the world, but they do it so that they can remain faithful to themselves and to one another. They know the truth of it, and it’s more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> For round one of the Eagle Fanmedia Challenge. I used the picture of the wildflowers as a prompt.
> 
> Essentially this is a movie!verse fic with the addition of Cottia and Cub because they're lovely.


End file.
